Let the Nations Be Glad!

by John Piper

  12. Leon Morris, “The Dreadful Harvest,” Christianity Today 35, no. 6 (27 May 1991): 36.

  13. In Edwards, Evangelical Essentials, 314, John Stott tries to honor this text by saying, “We surely have to say that this banishment from God will be real, terrible (so that ‘it would have been better for him if he had not been born,’ Mark 14:21) and eternal.” But he gives us no idea why a man who eats, drinks, and is merry for seventy years and then ceases to have any consciousness would have been better off not to have existed.

  14. Ibid., 318.

  15. John Stott has been gracious enough to correspond with me personally about this issue of the eternal fate of the lost. To be fair to one I count a brother and a theological and pastoral mentor for more than thirty years, I want to give his perspective on what I have written from a personal letter dated 1 March 1993. He writes: “I cannot honestly say that I think you have done justice to what I have written in Evangelical Essentials. . . . For example, I do strongly affirm all the ‘eternal’ and ‘unquenchable’ verses which you quote, and do believe in ‘eternal punishment.’ It is not the eternity but the nature of the punishment which is under discussion. You do not make this clear. I also believe in torment in the interim state (as the Dives and Lazarus story shows), and that there will be terrible ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ when the lost learn their fate. I think I believe as strongly as you do that ‘it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.’ What troubles me is the way you tend to quote proof texts as knock-down arguments, when they are capable of alternative interpretations. I just find you over-dogmatic, as I wrote in my earlier letter, leaving no room for the humble agnosticism which allows that God has not revealed everything as plainly as you make out.” I mentioned to Dr. Stott in an earlier letter that my less-than-positive attitude toward “agnosticism” and “tentativity” is probably influenced by the sea of relativism that I am trying to navigate, both inside and outside the church. I do not want to communicate an unwillingness to learn or to change as new light on the Scripture emerges. But my diagnosis of the sickness of our times inclines me less toward “humble agnosticism” and more toward (I hope) humble affirmation. Whether I have moved from warranted and well-grounded firmness of conviction into unwarranted and poorly argued dogmatism, I leave for others to judge.

  16. One person who has wrestled with the justice of hell and moved toward a very unusual position on annihilationism and the traditional view of conscious eternal misery is Greg Boyd, who represents the view called Open Theism. In his Satan and the Problem of Evil (Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter Varsity, 2001), Boyd attempts to handle the texts used to argue for the eternal conscious torment of hell and the texts used to argue for annihilationism by “affirming both views as essentially correct” (336). On the one hand, he says, “When all the Biblical evidence is viewed together, it must be admitted that the case for annihilationism is quite compelling” (336). But on the other hand, he sees some texts on the other side that do not fit the simple annihilationist view (he mentions Rev. 14:10; 20:10; Matt. 25:34, 41; 2 Thess. 1:6–9 [336]). He asks, “Where does this leave us? For my part, it leaves me in a conundrum. I do not believe that either the traditional position or the annihilationists’ position adequately accounts for all the Biblical evidence cited in support of the opposing side’s position. Yet I do not believe that Scripture can contradict itself (John 10:35). This raises the question: Is there a logically consistent way of affirming both views as essentially correct?” (336–37). His answer is yes: “I will attempt to move beyond the impasse of the traditional and annihilationist understandings of eternal punishment and construct a model of hell that allows us to affirm the essence of both perspectives” (339). He attempts to show that “hell is the eternal suffering of agents who have been annihilated” (356). He states a crucial premise: “There can be no shared reality between those who say yes to God and those who say no, just as there can be no shared reality between the actuality that God affirms and the possibilities that God negates” (347). Here is the conclusion that follows: “Love is about relationships, and relationships are about sharing reality. Hence, when in the eschaton reality is exhaustively defined by God’s love, the ‘reality’ of any agent who opposes love cannot be shared by anyone else and thus cannot be real to anyone else. It is experienced as real from the inside of the one who sustains it by his or her active willing it. But to all who participate in reality—that is, who are open to God and to each other through the medium of God’s love—it is nothing. It is eternally willed nothingness” (350). “Hell is real only from the inside” (348). Thus, “we are able to affirm that in one sense the inhabitants of hell are annihilated, though they suffer eternally. From the perspective of all who share reality in the eschaton, the damned are no more (Obad. 16). They exist only as utter negation. . . . They continue to experience torment, but it is a torment of their own pathetic choosing in an illusory reality of their own damned imagining” (350). “As Scripture says, they are extinct, reduced to ashes, forever forgotten. . . . But we may also accept the scriptural teaching regarding the eternity of the torment of the reprobates. . . . From the inside of the rebel experience, the nothingness that they have willed is experienced as a something. To all others, it is nothing” (353). I am not persuaded that Boyd’s complex and paradoxical “model” can survive close scrutiny. An extended critique of this view exceeds the bounds of this book, but I have written a partial response titled “Greg Boyd on ‘The Eternal Suffering of Agents Who Have Been Annihilated,’ ” available from Desiring God Ministries at www.DesiringGod.org or 1-888-346-4700.

  17. “It just does not make sense to say that a God of love will torture people forever for sins done in the context of a finite life.” Pinnock and Brown, Theological Crossfire, 226.

  18. “Would there not be serious disproportion between sins consciously committed in time and torment consciously experienced throughout eternity?” Edwards, Evangelical Essentials, 318.

  19. Jonathan Edwards, “The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), 669. For expositions of Edwards’s view on hell, see John Gerstner, Jonathan Edwards on Heaven and Hell (Morgan, Pa.: Soli Deo Gloria Publishers, 1999); and Chris Morgan, Hell and Jonathan Edwards: Toward a God-Centered Theology of Hell (Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2003).

  20. See Pinnock’s quote and Stott’s quote in note 3 above. Also see my critique of the way Pinnock follows the same procedure concerning the omniscience of God in my book Pleasures of God, 57–59n6. Another thing overlooked is that in hell the sins of the unrepentant go on forever and ever. They do not become righteous in hell. They are given over to the corruption of their nature so that they continue rebelling and deserving eternal punishment eternally. This latter insight was suggested to me by my colleague Tom Steller.

  21. Note that it would be an incorrect, superficial reading of this text, as well as of Romans 5:17–19, to assume that it is teaching universalism in the sense that all human beings will be saved. The “all” who are acquitted in Romans 5 are defined in Romans 5:17 as “those who receive the abundance of grace.” And the all who are made alive in 1 Corinthians 15:22 are defined as “those who belong to Christ.” The term “justification and life for all men” in Romans 5:18 does not mean that every human being who is in Adam will also be justified so that no one will perish and that there is no such thing as eternal punishment for anyone. I say this for several reasons: (1) Verse 17 speaks of receiving the gift of righteousness as though some do and some don’t. Verse 17: “For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.” That does not sound as though everybody does receive it. (2) “Justification of life to all men” in Romans 5:18 does not mean that all humans are justified because Paul teaches in this very book that there is eternal punishme
nt and that all humans are not justified. For example, in Romans 2:5 he says, “But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,” and then in verses 7 and 8 he contrasts this wrath with “eternal life” and so shows that it is eternal wrath, not temporary wrath. So there will be some who are not justified but come under the wrath of God forever and others who have eternal life. (3) “Justification of life to all men” in Romans 5:18 does not mean that all humans are justified because in all of Romans up to this point, justification is not automatic, as if every human receives it, but it is “by faith.” Romans 5:1: “Therefore, having been justified by faith . . .” Romans 3:28: “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.” Further, a universalistic reading of Paul’s “all” statements renders Paul’s intense grief (Rom. 9:3)—to the point of wishing he could perish, if possible, on their behalf—unintelligible.

  22. For further study of the significance of Christ’s death, consider the following texts: Matt. 26:28; Mark 10:45; John 1:29; 6:51; Rom. 4:25–5:1; 5:6, 8–10; 1 Cor. 15:3; 2 Cor. 5:18–21; Gal. 1:4; 4:4; Eph. 1:7; 2:1–5, 13, 16, 18; 5:2, 25; Col. 1:20; 1 Thess. 5:9; Titus 2:14; 1 Tim. 4:10; Heb. 1:3; 9:12, 22, 26; 10:14; 12:24; 13:12; 1 Peter 1:19; 2:24; 3:18; 1 John 2:2; Rev. 1:5.

  23. See notes 6 and 7 above for representatives of this view. Clark Pinnock embraces the idea that people from other religions will be saved without knowing Christ. “We do not need to think of the church as the ark of salvation, leaving everyone else in hell; we can rather think of it as the chosen witness to the fullness of salvation that has come into the world through Jesus” (emphasis added). Clark Pinnock, “Acts 4:12—No Other Name Under Heaven,” in Through No Fault of Their Own, 113. Also see Clark H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God’s Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992); and Clark Pinnock, “An Inclusivist View,” in More Than One Way? Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World, ed. Dennis L. Okholm and Timothy R. Phillips (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 95–123. He is following others with similar views: Charles Kraft, Christianity in Culture (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1979), 253–57; James N. D. Anderson, Christianity and World Religions (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1984), chap. 5; John E. Sanders, “Is Belief in Christ Necessary for Salvation?” Evangelical Quarterly 60 (1988): 241–59; and John Sanders, No Other Name: An Investigation into the Destiny of the Unevangelized (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992). For a short survey of representatives on both sides of the question, see Malcolm J. McVeigh, “The Fate of Those Who’ve Never Heard? It Depends,” Evangelical Missions Quarterly 21, no. 4 (October 1985): 370–79. For books with multiple views represented, see Gabriel Fackre, Ronald H. Nash, and John Sanders, What about Those Who Have Never Heard? Three Views on the Destiny of the Unevangelized (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995); and Ockholm and Phillips, More Than One Way? For critiques of inclusivism, see Carson, The Gagging of God, 279–314; Dick Dowsett, God, That’s Not Fair! (Sevenoaks, Kent: OMF Books, 1982); Ronald H. Nash, Is Jesus the Only Savior? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994); Ramesh Richard, The Population of Heaven (Chicago: Moody, 1994); Paul R. House and Gregory A. Thornbury, eds., Who Will Be Saved? Defending the Biblical Understanding of God, Salvation, and Evangelism (Wheaton: Crossway, 2000), 111–60; and the contributions of R. Douglas Geivett and W. Gary Phillips in More Than One Way?

  24. There is a continuity between God’s path to salvation in the Old Testament times and the path through faith in Jesus during the New Testament times. Even before Christ, people were not saved apart from special revelation given by God. See Fernando, Sharing the Truth in Love, 224–33. It is not as though general revelation through nature was effective in producing faith before Christ but ceased to be effective after Christ. According to Romans 1:18–23, general revelation through nature has always been sufficient to make people accountable to glorify and thank God, but not efficient to do so. The reason given is that people in their natural condition suppress the truth. See note 40. Thus, special revelation has always been the path to salvation, and this special revelation was centered in Israel, the promise of a Redeemer, and the foreshadow-ings of this salvation in the sacrificial system of the Old Testament. Jesus is now the climax and fulfillment of that special revelation so that saving faith, which was always focused on special revelation, is now focused on him.

  25. John Calvin, The Acts of the Apostles, 14–28, trans. John W. Fraser (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973), 123.

  26. Tom Wells, A Vision for Missions (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1985), 12–13.

  27. I state it like this so as to leave open salvation for infants and the mentally handicapped who do not have the physical ability even to apprehend that there is any revelation available at all. The principle of accountability in Romans 1:20 (God makes knowledge available “in order that they might be without excuse”) is the basis for this conviction. The Bible does not deal with this special case in any detail, and we are left to speculate that the fitness of the connection between faith in Christ and salvation will be preserved through the coming to faith of children whenever God brings them to maturity in heaven or in the age to come. For a defense of this view, see Ronald H. Nash, When a Baby Dies: Answers to Comfort Grieving Parents (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999); and Albert Mohler, “The Salvation of the ‘Little Ones’: Do Infants Who Die Go to Heaven?” Fidelitas: Commentary on Theology and Culture (http://www.sbts.edu/mohler/fidelitas/littleones.html). Mohler points out that John Newton, Charles Spurgeon, Charles Hodge, and B. B. Warfield all held such a position. All these were strong believers in original sin, as I am, but also believed that God would provide a just way for the salvation of infants without compromising that doctrine or the doctrine of unconditional election.

  28. Erickson, “Hope for Those Who Haven’t Heard?” 124–25.

  29. Don Richardson, Eternity in Their Hearts (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1981), 56–58.

  30. W. Harold Fuller, Run While the Sun Is Hot (London: Hazell Watson and Viney Ltd., n.d.), 183–84.

  31. Pinnock, “Acts 4:12—No Other Name Under Heaven,” 110. Pinnock acknowledges that the commentators (e.g., Bruce, Haenchen, Longenecker, Conzelmann) take Acts 4:12 to support the “exclusivist paradigm.”

  32. Ibid., 109.

  33. The Greek verb for “hear” (akouo) followed by a person in the genitive case means “hear the person,” not merely hear about him. Most commentators are agreed on this (e.g., Murray, Cranfield, Moo).

  34. John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 60.

  35. Ibid., 62.

  36. Charles Hodge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (New York: A. C. Armstrong and Son, 1893), 548.

  37. See note 7.

  38. LXX is an abbreviation for the Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint. It comes from the tradition that the translation was made by seventy (LXX) scholars.

  39. He finds support for this conclusion also in Romans 1:18–21. But the problem with this is that though these verses teach the reality of general revelation that is sufficient to hold humanity accountable to glorify God (v. 21), nevertheless, they also teach that men suppress this truth in unrighteousness (v. 18) and do not thank God or honor him the way they should (v. 21) and are therefore without excuse (v. 20). General revelation is sufficient to hold all men accountable to worship God but not efficient to bring about the faith that saves. That is why the gospel must be preached to all peoples. God wills to honor his Son by accompanying the preaching of his name with heart-awakening power.

  40. Murray, Epistle to the Romans, 61: “Since the gospel proclamation is not to all without distinction, it is proper to see the parallel between the universality of general revelation and the universalism of the gospel. The former is the pattern now followed in the sounding forth of the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth. The application which Paul makes of Psalm 19:4 can thus be s
een to be eloquent not only of this parallel but also of that which is implicit in the parallel, namely, the widespread diffusion of the gospel of grace.” Hodge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 549: “This verse, therefore is to be considered as a strong declaration that what Paul had proved ought to be done, had in fact been accomplished. The middle wall of partition had been broken down, the gospel of salvation, the religion of God, was free from its trammels, the offers of mercy were as wide and general as the proclamation of the heavens. . . . His object in using the words of the Psalmist was, no doubt, to convey more clearly and affectingly to the minds of his hearers the idea that the proclamation of the gospel was now as free from all nations or ecclesiastical restrictions, as the instructions shed down upon all people by the heavens under which they dwell. Paul, of course, is not to be understood as quoting the Psalmist as though the ancient prophet was speaking of the preaching of the gospel. He simply uses scriptural language to express his own ideas, as is done involuntarily almost by every preacher in every sermon.”

  41. The words “Their voice has gone out” does not have to mean that the spread of the message is finished. In Paul’s context, the natural meaning is that the gospel has been propelled into the world to reach all peoples. Olshausen suggests that “‘their voice has gone out’ is to be understood as prophetically spoken; that which is begun is viewed as if already completed, and therefore we need not seek for any further explanation how it is that St. Paul can represent Christ’s messengers as spread all over the earth, whereas, when he wrote these words, they had not so much as carried the preaching of Christ through the whole of the Roman empire.” Hermann Olshausen, Studies in the Epistle to the Romans (1849; reprint, Minneapolis: Klock and Klock Christian Publishers: 1983), 354.

  42. John Ellenberger, “Is Hell a Proper Motivation for Missions?” in Through No Fault of Their Own, 225.